


Talk to Me

by NorroenDyrd



Series: And at Last I See the Light [2]
Category: Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Dark Inquisitor, Demonic Possession, Denial of Feelings, Dragon Age Quest: Champions of the Just, Envy Demons (Dragon Age), F/M, Falling In Love, Fluff and Angst, Gen, Holding Hands, Hurt/Comfort, Mild Hurt/Comfort, Post-Champions of the Just, Self-Doubt, Self-Hatred, Sera Being Sera, Visions
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-14
Updated: 2017-03-14
Packaged: 2018-10-05 02:56:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,757
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10295864
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NorroenDyrd/pseuds/NorroenDyrd
Summary: Maedhros Lavellan chose to support the Templars, Lord Seeker Lucius' behaviour having immediately sparked his suspicion - but after the Inquisition returns from Therinfal Redoubt, he seems deeply troubled. This causes Josephine great concern.





	

For what must be at least a dozenth time, Josephine frowns deeply and, tapping her fingers against the surface of her desk, next to the paper sheet before her, stares down at the Seeker's report. Sweet Merciful Maker, she would be the last person to say anything ill about Cassandra - but her writing style is rather... regrettably lacking in detail. Josephine can almost imagine her swooshing her quill like a sword, as she must have carved these brusque, short sentences into the flesh of the hapless parchment.  
  
 _We arrived at Therinfal Redoubt. There were a lot of nobles. Sera aggravated most of them. Lord Seeker Lucius turned out to be an envy demon. This affirmed the Herald's suspicions regarding his behaviour in Val Royeaux. It is good that we acted upon them. It is not as good that I tried to strike the Herald back then. ~~I must apologize..~~ That is irrelevant to the report._  
  
 _The demon used the Lord Seeker's likeness to force the Templars to take Red Lyrium. Same substance as in Kirkwall. The demon attempted to possess the Herald. But the Herald resisted. There was a battle. We managed to minimize the losses among uncorrupted Templars. By order of the Herald, they have been conscripted. The Inquisition won._  
  
Among these short, chopped phrases, two in particular stand out before Josephine's eyes, making her one her hand around her forehead and resume her nervous tapping with the other. _The demon attempted to possess the Herald. But the Herald resisted._ She wants these words to be true, most ardently - but somehow, she finds herself torn with doubt.  
  
The Herald has not been himself since the Inquisition's triumphant return with the Templars in tow. Pale and absent-minded; dazed even, often acknowledging other people's presence only when he bumps into them, or when they touch him during a conversation, to alert him to the fact that they have been talking all this time, and he is now expected to make a response. And that response generally turns out to sound even more curt and snappy than usual. The latter change in his behaviour has probably been disregarded by his other companions, like... like a soot stain on the coat of a black cat - but not by the Ambassador.  
  
She is probably flattering herself far more than she deserves, but... But it has not escaped Josephine's attention that, when talking to her, Master Lavellan has generally been more open, more engaged, more amicable. He has seemed so eager to seek out her company, to ask her about the Inquisition's latest guests, nodding and shaking his head to show that no detail of entertaining an overzealous, gore-loving Fereldan warrior bann and a prim and proper Orlesian dowager at the same dinner table has escaped his attention. And sometimes, he would even give Josephine a smile.  
  
She can still recall one of the broadest, most lingering smiles ever to touch his lips: that was when she presented him with the spectacles that she had had fashioned for him to compensate for his farsightedness. The crinkles of skin around his eyes deepened when he tried on the delicate construct (Josephine had made sure that the design was one currently in vogue, with gilded swirls and dainty little ornamental wings), and the tips of his leaf-like ears burned a warm shade of pink, as he tucked his long, copper-and-silver hair behind them to keep it from getting into his squinting, glimmering eyes. The sight of him, so happy and flustered and infinitely fascinated by how the world looked through his spectacles, filled Josephine with a sort of warm fondness that she thought inappropriate, hiding behind her clipboard lest the foolishly fawning look on her face betray her.  
  
But now, these sweet little moments seem to be a thing of the past. In the recent days, she and the Herald have not shared a single friendly conversation, nor exchanged a single smile. Not since the encounter with the demon in Therinfal. Of course, Josephine quite understands that the Templars will soon be marching to close the Breach; this is not something to be taken lightly, and the Herald must be going through some rigorous preparation under Master Solas' guidance... Maybe he is just being his usual self, and all her worries are merely the result of pouting like a neglected teenager because the Herald does not have enough time to gossip with her.   
  
So Josephine tries to console herself. But still, every time she passes Lavellan by in the Chantry corridor and he responds to her tentative wave by either looking away or staring right through her, his green eyes cold and distant in the rim of bruised black circles, and then snarls at Mother Giselle when he brushes against her with his shoulder, something small and shivering seems to curl up inside her heart, with a piteous whimper. And with the whimper, comes a persistent circle of questions.  
  
What is wrong with him? Has he fallen sick? Is he having troubling visions in the Fade? Why won't he talk to her, or anyone else? Talking would make things so much better, wouldn't it?  
  
If there are answers to be found, Cassandra's report is evidently not the place where Josephine should be looking. After mulling over it for a moment longer, she pushes it away, draws her armchair back with a sharp screech of wood against the stone floor and, slipping from behind her desk, sets out to search for the other companions that were there with Master Lavellan.  
  
Sera, of course, doesn't prove to be much help. Josephine would probably not even consider her as the go-to person to clear up the story of what happened at Therinfal - but it just so happens that the regrettably untidy young elf is the first person she sees as she steps out her study. The girl is rocking back and forth on her heels (with condiments smeared all over her shirt, as always) and giggling at what Mother Giselle has just said to her. Apparently, the Revered Mother has been chastising Sera for drawing an enormous caricature of male genitalia on the back of a healer's robe.  
  
Sera's counterclaim is rather... logical, in her own way,  
  
'It's making the sick people laugh, innit? You don't have much fun going around when all you see is your own puke or them sweating faces on the cots to your left and to your right! 'Sides, it was Segritt who sold the bird that robe, right? When her old one got too bloody to wash... So I figured, the fella would like it if I signed his goods with his name, yeah?'  
  
'Our merchant's name is not...' Mother Giselle says sternly, and then pauses, with a flush, coming to a sudden realization.  
  
Josephine seizes this moment of awkward silence and coughs politely to draw Sera's attention.  
  
'I was wondering is you could tell me,' she begins, as Sera turns towards her, grinning, 'In more detail... How Master Lavellan combated the demon... exactly? How... How did he feel when he had just emerged... from that nightmare?'  
  
Sera pulls a sour grimace.  
  
'Look, I like you, Peachy Bottoms,' she says, prompting an embarrassed choke out of Josephine, 'But that was some creepy shite! People eating red poop and going crazy, that sick little... thing in a hat that the old guy picked up, like... like some sort of bloody stray kitten... And then, the slimy-butt demon talking inside his head... Brrr! If you must learn more about it, go ask Viv or somethin'! Bet she has tea with things like that every night, pinkie sticking out and everything. She can tell you how much sugar demons take... Blech, now I won't be eating sugar for weeks! Why d'I have to say this!'  
  
Josephine follows Sera's advice and seeks out Madame Vivienne, who also accompanied the Herald to Therinfal to make sure that the negotiations proceeded as smoothly as possible (and they did, as Josephine was told; it was hardly the Enchanter's fault that the Templars thought that shooting an honoured guest through the eye socket was a socially acceptable thing to do).  
  
Of course, Madame Vivienne does not disclose the subtleties of demons' tea-drinking habits - but she does have a few other things to say.  
  
'Your concern is understandable, my dear,' she assures Josephine, gracefully motioning her to sit down in an armchair beside hers. 'Admirable as his magical talents are, our mutual friend lacks a proper Circle education, and the discipline that comes with it. Such an intense confrontation with a demon certainly made him quite vulnerable to possession. But rest assured: both Commander Cullen and I have run a number of necessary tests, and confirmed that the demon that tried to use the Herald as a host has, indeed, been safely banished, and that Master Lavellan is no danger to others'.  
  
'Oh,' Josephine says in a small voice.   
  
Then, she adds, her tone turning out... rather tearful for some reason, especially towards the end,  
  
'I... I did not mean it like that! I was not afraid of Milord Lavellan possibly being an abomination! I was not afraid of him - I was afraid _for_ him! He seems so shaken... Almost heartbroken. I was just trying to make sense of how... how he was feeling. To see whether he needed comforting'.  
  
As he passes by on some errand that he almost forgot, stumbling forth like a sleepwalker, Maedhros Lavellan catches the end of Josephine's rushed, anguished explanation - and it makes him stagger to a halt and weave his fingers through the matted strands of his hair, wincing in pain.  
  
He... He does need comforting, though he will never admit it out loud. As, night after night, the spirits insist on recreating the bloodcurdling visions of his doubles cruelty, which were first shown to him by the envy demon, he keeps waking up in cold sweat, unable to move, as if a splinter of wood has been driven through his chest, pinning him to his bed. And, night after night and day after day, he longs, secretly, almost to his own shame, for gentle arms to hold him, for a musical Antivan accent to whisper into his ear that it is all over, that he is back to the real world again. He knows she will be happy to soothe him, if he asks her - but he cannot.  
  
He cannot. He is too terrified to as much as approach her, as much as return her sweet-natured greetings... Not while he still remembers what the demon made him see. What the demon made him do.  
  
Of all the gruesome details of that alternate future, where, an obedient husk for the demon to nestle in, he lead the armies of the Elder One to subjugate the whole world; of all the ghostly scenes that wove out of black and green smoke before him, building upon his fear of failing the Inquisition like he failed his clan; of all the atrocities that this cruel creature would have committed in his guise, the most agonizing one for Maedhros to watch was the vision of his other self, tall and hollow-eyed and wreathed in inky smoke, stride into the cell where Josephine was kept. Josephine - the beautiful, refined, tender Josephine, the one person he would never hurt, the one person who made him smile like a giddy little boy... Sitting on the cold, hard stone... With her delicate, fragile ankle, of a foot that never knew anything but soft silken shoes, clasped in a heavy ring of cast iron, which was in turn chained to the floor. With her beautiful black hair undone and streaming down her twitching shoulders, allowing mere glimpses of her haggard face, as she whispered weakly,  
  
'Three days without food... One without water...  I wish the Inquisitor would tell me what he wants me to confess...'  
  
The abomination laughed when she said that. A loud, metallic laugh, like the clanging of prison chains. This made Josephine look up, gazing into the black shade's burning sockets with a mixture of sadness and reproach.  
  
'I heard the guards whisper that you have killed the last member of my family that you kept as a hostage,' she said, her cracked voice almost as flat as a Tranquil's. 'So all that remains is more starvation and torture. I am tired of suffering and grieving, and I have no doubt that you will break me in time, milord, like you did the others, and that I will own up to whatever treason you want to accuse me of. So before you set to work, I just want to say that... You have become a monster, milord. And it breaks my heart. I... I cared for you once, you know. I thought... I thought you a different man'.  
  
True, it was his demonic double who did this to her; and he (and perhaps that odd straw-haired boy, Cole) is the only person to ever see that future come to pass... But still, Maedhros feels so very unworthy of Josephine's attention, as if he were dripping with some vile filth. And this makes the pain left in his nightmares' wake even more shattering.  
  
So shattering, in fact, that he lets a small, agonized outcry slip through his tightly gritted teeth. This suddenly makes Josephine aware of his presence. Looking away from Vivienne, she meets Lavellan's gaze - and gasps in alarm.  
  
'Milord!' she calls out, darting from her seat, her gilded ruffles in a whirl, and skittering up to the startled, stiffening elf. 'Milord! Are you quite all tight? You look frightfully pale! Please don't walk away from me again, milord!   
  
And before he knows it, Herald Lavellan finds himself seated in Vivienne's place (the Enchanter having also gotten up and tactfully withdrawn from the scene), with Josephine fidgeting opposite him. He looks in her eyes again, and she in his - and completely without warning, they open their mouths and shower each other in a stream of jumbled exclamations.  
  
'Please don't think it improper - but I was worried...'  
  
'... I... I didn't mean to be avoiding you, Josephine... I just...'  
  
'That horrible experience in Therinfal still weighs on you, doesn't it? Have you confided in anyone at all?'  
  
'The... The things that demon made me see... You were in there... And the others... I would have killed you all, if I let that thing possess me...'  
  
'Oh my goodness, milord... Are you crying? Please don't cry? Or... Or I will start crying too, and that will be most undignified'.  
  
When they snap out of it a little bit, blinking off the hot droplets that have been glueing their eyelashes together, the Herald and the Ambassador discover that they are holding hands. Josephine makes a stifled squeak-like noise, and Lavellan gapes down blankly at his long, gnarled, coarse fingers, as if unable to believe how the Antivan's carefully manicured little hands ended up clasped between his. They both hastily draw away, Josephine coughing and blushing, and the Herald squeezing out a husky apology.  
  
'I... I am sorry I upset you so... And... And did this...' with these words, he curls his fingers into fists, as an extra measure of keeping them away from Josephine. 'I guess that... After Therinfal... I secretly wished... Nevermind. There has to be some work I am keeping you from'.  
  
'B-before we part ways,' Josephine cuts in, just as the elf is about to get up and shuffle off, 'Might I suggest calling us all together and talking over your... your visions?'  
  
Lavellan looks surprised.  
  
'I thought I had covered it all in my briefing with Leliana. Our enemies have plans to summon an army of demons and kill that... Empress person, and,..'  
  
Josephine's desire for Lavellan to see her point is so strong that she even overlooks his irreverence towards the ruler of Orlais.  
  
'But... Pardon me for my boldness, milord...' Josephine flushes again. 'You never talked about your feelings'.  
  
Lavellan freezes up, and (Maker forgive her for such unseemly comparisons) Josephine is suddenly and poignantly reminded of a horse she once rode; the poor beast had been badly abused by his previous owners, who sold him off to Josephine's family for little more than a handful of coppers - and the very first display of kindness made him bolt in sheer terror as if he had been struck by lightning.  
  
'I... I always assumed my feelings are irrelevant,' Lavellan says faintly.  
  
'You assume wrong, milord,' Josephine objects, with a firmness in her voice she herself has not expected.


End file.
